My letter in response to a news article published on October 31, 2013 involving sex offenders, probation, and oh ya .... the need to shot them mentality.

Representative Barnes

In reading the October 31, 2013 article from KMBC.com about the Missouri Sex Offender Assessment Unit, I wanted to discuss your efforts to eliminate such because I am not sure you fully understand what is going on. See http://www.kmbc.com/news/kansas-city/missouri-program-helps-sex-offenders-get-early-release/-/11664182/22745342/-/yh71tn/-/index.html

The first thing I want to let you know is that on November 14, 2013, I am one of several people who will be participating in what I describe as a talk show format for radio broadcast on the subject of the Missouri Sexual Offender Program that is used in Missouri and whether such is worth the tax revenue being spent. The program will be aired in early December 2013 and will broadcast on radio stations that are in the National Public Radio network and it will be posted in print as well on the Internet.

Unfortunately members of the media are notorious for reporting half truths and sometimes outright and blatant false information involving sex offenders, recidivism rates, and other matters related and they almost never seek the other side of the story from those directly involved in the arena because the media is driven by ratings and the truth - the real truth - not the media's version of the truth, does not get the ratings that they want.

The Sex Offender Assessment Unit (SOAU) it is NOT and I repeat it is NOT a 120-day treatment program but a 120-day evaluation program instead. As an evaluation program it is to assess the risk factors of those who go though the SOAU in whether they will re-offend. It is a subject that is apart of my federal civil rights litigation in the U.S. District Court for the District of Missouri out of St. Louis, Missouri. Suffice to say, I very knowledgeable about the sex offender programs used in Missouri and the issues with each of them.

MHM Correctional Services, Inc., which is a private for-profit corporation that operates under contract with the State of Missouri, conducts the SOAU. Pursuant to Section 4-6.3 of their contract with the State of Missouri, anyone who is listed as being only a "potential" sexual predator is to be denied any chance at all of getting probation. In other words, MHM employees are to deliberately sabotage the offenders chances of being given probation by the criminal court, in the evaluation report MHM employees submit to the criminal court.

Hence, if the alleged 600 people whom Ms. Harrison purports to be "sexual predators" were assessed in the SOAU to even be a "potential" sexually violent predator, they would not have been released at all, but illegally deprived their rights under Section 589.040.2 RSMo, instead. And yes, it is really irritating that the media does such a crappy job when doing stories involving sex offenders.

Now,you seek to have the SOAU eliminated on the basis that a reporter, Haley Harrison, purports that an alleged 600 so-called sexual predators were released from prison on probation after going through the SOAU and then allegedly committed new alleged sex crimes, yet, Ms. Harrison either does not understand the term "sexual predator" or she chooses to deliberately misapply the term to derogatorily stereotype all sex offenders into one class for the sake of getting ratings for herself.

My ward of guardianship was admitted to the SOAU and while he was to required receive the 120-day evaluation, he was given only twelve days instead. During that twelve day period he was given two psychological tests to take. However, because MHM employees decided they did not want to assist my ward to take the psychological tests, my ward was required to take at least one of them to his cell and do it himself. Due to my wards qualified disabilities he was not able to understand the test that he was required to perform independent of any assistance from MHM employees and thus, another inmate did it for him. Therefore, his test results were based upon the answers from another inmate and not his own.

Subsequently, MHM employees then filed their report with the criminal court, which in turn denied my ward probation based on faulty information given by MHM employees resulting from their own deliberate indifference to my wards serious mental health needs. However, my ward actually scored very low on the Static 99 test which measures the possibility of his committing additional sex crimes, and was administered to him before going to prison for the SOAU program.

Now I realize that Missouri legislators have this incredibly intense thirst of hate for sex offenders and want to pass any law possible to make sure that those labeled as sex offenders do not have any civil rights whatsoever because it is politically popular to do so,promotes public hate, and gets votes to put someone in office, yet, there are many things wrong with the sex offender programs used in Missouri.

Unfortunately, Missouri legislators do not want to fix what is wrong with these programs unless of course it is to insure that sex offenders have no civil rights and are not allowed to be treated as a human being, to be paroled or receive probation, to get jobs and housing, and pretty much he right to even breath air let alone be alive. Hence my federal litigation that is suing MHM and six of its employees and four officials with the Missouri Department of Corrections.

So, in your quest to insure that sex offenders are taken out in the back woods and shot, perhaps you might want to insure that before we shoot them we are not mistakenly shooting them just for the sake of doing so because some reporter makes claims in the name of "truth and justice" based on a one-sided view that invariably fails to report the actual truth about what is really going on.